Copiando The Settlers
From the title of the former Blue Bytes, this IC2 draws heavily, providing an assembly-line structured resource administration: you will have to start from raw resources, such as wood, meat and cereals, and through a series of increasingly advanced buildings (in order carpentry, butcher and baker), you will have to get to supply your city with the finished product, in order to meet the pressing needs of every social class.
If, on paper, it may seem very simple, the practice is complicated by the presence of areas of influence associated with each building: for your chain to work without interruptions, you will have to worry about keeping the production cycle within these mangy circles. with the risk that a building will not receive the materials for its production and therefore remain inactive.
If we want to continue to see everything in this pessimistic perspective, an inactive building leads not only to the deterioration of the appearance of the neighborhoods in which it is located, but significantly increases the risk of fires, real calamities to be avoided in any way, by resorting to or to the rewarding tricks (and so we played the respect of hardcore gamers), or to the Prefectures, civic buildings that are concerned, among other things, with safeguarding honest citizens from evildoers, thieves and disturbing bald and malicious editors.
Basically, your every game will vaguely resemble a three-dimensional Tetris, where you will spend your time fitting circumferences on circumferences, in a desperate attempt to make your metropolis less messy than Turin, in spite of any regulatory plan and all according to the needs. of your citizenship: however, this very game of intersections and unions inevitably leads to Chaos and very rarely you will be able to avoid the collapse of your city.
Unless…
Drawing from Rise of Nations
Unless, the developers have thought, we are not borrowing another idea that enriches the current game mechanics.
Thus the Tabulae make their triumphal entry (we never thought that 5 years of Latin would be useful, at least now we know that we read TABULE), essentially mission cards that provide bonuses, malus (the review begins to take on an intellectual tone) and any objectives to be achieved to complete the scenario: yes, the only way not to get to the type of game over mentioned above is to complete the assigned tasks as soon as possible.
The Prefectures, civic buildings that are concerned, among other things, with safeguarding honest citizens from evildoers, thieves and disturbing bald and malicious editors
Drawing from Rise of Nations
A full-blown ploy, which nevertheless presents some interesting aspects: each mission card, while almost always providing for the obligation to construct a certain number of buildings or reach a certain level of well-being, is integrated by an interesting historical description that illustrates the reasons why the Senate, in ancient Rome, really did assign such priorities.
You will then discover the reasons why it was necessary to accumulate large quantities of stones during the winter, why the Roman aqueducts had to be emptied periodically, leaving the city without water for some time, and other interesting background of life in that period: unfortunately, from a purely playful point of view, these Tabulae vary the game action, but in the long run they prove not only too simple to complete, but also rather repetitive.
In light of the above, we do not feel like promoting this card system as a real strength, but at least you won't have the impression of getting lost in a very long sand box session.
Drawing from Total War
In a game about Ancient Rome it cannot, materially, lack the aspect that most characterized the society of that period: war.
Even IC2 is no exception and, although it is nowhere near the tactical depth of the various Total Wars, you too will have to worry about enlisting legions to defend your settlement and (in the perfect perspective of preventive peace), massacring the neighboring barbarian populations.
Drawing from Total War
That the title of FX Interactive is focused on city management is evident, since the war aspect is reduced, simply, to building a barracks to recruit, alternatively, Equites (soldiers on horseback), Pedites (soldiers on foot) and Archers. , thus following the tried and tested Chinese morra system.
Once you have formed your armies, you can decide to attack the villages on the map, or just keep the troops for any defensive clashes, perhaps following the opening of a Tabula that unleashes a horde of bloodthirsty barbarians against you: the impression is that the developers had to insert this aspect by force, taking care of it as best as possible and thus lowering the sense of care that instead permeates the entire production.
Sense of accuracy that is presented to you through graphics that have nothing to envy to the aforementioned millionaire productions (has anyone talked about Empire Earth 3?), Showing you a city full of details, which you will see live under your eyes and reflected on any puddles of water: every building, even if belonging to the same type (for example, houses), will always be different from previous buildings, giving you the feeling of not being in front of a perfect IKEA city, but something more personal, where they are the inhabitants themselves to customize their structures.
We also point out, among the goodies that are rarely seen in a budget title, a rather intuitive and clean interface, which will immediately familiarize even those who have never picked up a strategy game, and a wheel-structured construction menu. , particularly neat and well done.
Comment
We have reached the conclusion and it is therefore our duty to answer the fateful question of whether it is worth spending the € 19.90 for this game, or if it is better to invest it in an evening at a pizzeria.
Apart from the fact that the writer hates pizza (blasphemy! Nd Tanzen), without a doubt Imperium Civitas 2 is an RTS that is fun and without false ambitions: it is a game sold at a budget price, but which could easily have been a full price one. , you want for the quality not only of the title itself, but also for the goodness with which it was made the whole (including, we mention, a manual of 63 pages all in color).
Buy it not only if you love the genre, but even if this is your first experience: you will spend several hours having fun and, in the end, this is what a game must do.
For
- Very affordable price
- Funny
- Nice graphics
- Repetitive over distance
- It will make you feel like you have spent € 50 on EE3
Hardware
Minimum requirements:
- Processor: Pentium 4 2.0 Ghz or AMD 2200+
- RAM: MB 512
- Video Card: Direct 3D compatible with 64Mb
- Disk space: 3.0 GB
- Processor: Pentium 4 3 Ghz or AMD 3000+
- RAM: MB 1024
- Video Card: Direct 3D compatible with 128Mb
- Disk space: 3.0 GB
- Processor: Intel Core Duo E6700 at 2.7 Ghz
- RAM: 2 Gb
- Scheda Video: NVIDIA BFG 8800 GTX
- Sistema Operativo: Windows Vista Ultimate
The game presents itself, on the test configuration, obviously fluid, maintaining a constant framerate around 35/40 fps, with all the details at the maximum and at 1650 * 1050; however, like many strategy games, as soon as your city begins to take on a considerable size, you will notice significant drops in the framerate.
Nothing annoying anyway.
Empire State II is available for PC.
Small Philosophical Digression on the Meaning of the Budget
When a longtime player buys a budget title he knows, more or less consciously, that the game in question will disappoint him at least in one respect, be it of secondary importance (a manual printed on one-page recycled paper) or perhaps more fundamental. such as outdated graphics or gross programming errors.
The mistake one often, too often falls into, is that of associating the concept of budget game with that of a supermarket basket title: in reality some productions, including this Imperium Civitas 2, have nothing to envy to many others. fake triple A titles
Indeed, to be sold for € 19.90, it has a lot to teach ...
Do not expect such revolutions, from this new FX Interactive title: Imperium Civitas 2 (IC2, for the sake of brevity, which otherwise we consume all the characters available) is nothing more than yet another, evergreen and rewarding real-time strategy game in which , like it or not, the player will be called to administer his city, making sure that he fulfills all the thankless tasks that belonged to a Roman governor.
Sounds like recycling? It is, however IC2 avoids the stumbling block of boredom, managing to capture us with its many advantages and skilfully masking some small defects: if in fact the gameplay looks like the usual heated soup, made up of resource collection, building construction and attempts aimed at satisfying the needs of our population, the real strength lies in a nice combination of the most successful elements of the best RTS.
